Chapter Twenty-Seven
Luda and Buelah sit in straight-backed chairs. Remembrances are exchanged, most are pleasant, though some originating during the War are more poignant. Luda first came across the MacDonald plantation when she was Mary Astor Cabot, an exhausted surgical nurse just discharged from serving with the Union forces of General Banks in the Louisiana campaigns. The war had ended and she was departing the South. Though the Mississippi River was the more convenient route to the north and home, a beleaguered and jaded Mary Astor Cabot needed to retreat. She needed isolation, to be alone and away from the male world of guns, cannons and death.
And so when she happened upon Buelah’s plantation, the quiet simplicity and disciplined atmosphere augured well. With Buelah in charge, t
